not quite "The Life" yet, man

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Hey, haven't had the time/interest to update in a couple weeks- everything and nothing has happened. I snuck out and stayed at my friends house while my parents were at the hospital for my mom's surgery overnight, and yesterday snuck back in the house after pretending to leave for school and stayed in my room reading and watching movies the whole day (I'm cutting gym while writing this but honestly who cares). Oh, and today I was supposed to have a kinda-maybe-coffe-date with my friend E, with whom i agreed to try going out with last week (but I don't think it's gonna work), and I waited for half an hour reading about the
Armenian genocide until I finally accepted that she stood me up. With our pretty long and twisted history, that's one of the last chances she has, if it happens again I'm through with her- other than L, she's the one person in the world who has hurt me the most (and that's above my family which is saying something). She's always telling me how much she loves me and how I'm the most important person in the world to her, but (and this is a total cliche I knnow i know) drugs are more important- her descent into being some tragic fucked up anti-heroine takes precedent over everything else. I broke my promise to her today and talked about her to our mutual friend T (even though E says that that friend group means nothing to her anymore and she doesn't trust any of them), who confirmed that she's not been showing up and smoking even more than usual, along with other stuff. I'm pretty sure that she didn't show up this morning because she was buying ecstasy from this shady guy- she's starting to owe him money though, me and T talked about how we hope she goes broke from buying so much that she can finally stop and pull her shit together to do drugs responsibly like everybody else. I'm sympathetic but getting pretty fucking tired of this stuff, and am not comfortable being her only source of support. I kinda love her though, but I'll put that aside if she keeps doing this. Fuck.

On the upside I'm supposed to be going to a community group for queer teen girls tomorrow!! Which i'm anticipating as being freaking awesome (the organization LYRIC also does queer teen dances and stuff, one of which I"m going to this friday). Okay I've got an actual class next, read me soon!

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Okay so in case you haven't noticed, I don't always follow capitalization rules and use a lot of exclamation points where they don't belong. And this post will probably be pretty dull and read like a diary account of our retreat, I'll try to make it interesting but no promises :)
The overnight was amazing! We met up at our pick-up point in Golden Gate park at 8 o clock with overnight gear and white elephant gifts, except for the senior team: ironically, even though they all did it last year, 3 out of the four forgot gifts, and the last one, token my-little-pony fan who we make fun of but all love, didn't wrap his. Luckily our scatter-brained boss was about twenty minutes late, so the two girls and pony boy ran into the gas station to buy presents/wrapping paper. The last one wrote a coupon for a seductive love song.
Once all of the SF kids and rides were there, we split into different rides- one girl went with the old program director to pick up the 3 marin kids, five went with another intern who has her own car, and the remaining nine of us crammed into the program van and set off on the two hour drive to Point Reyes. I was pretty psyched to sit next to one of the sophomores who works on the other day since he seems really chill, but he fell asleep about fifteen minutes in. It is ridiculous- every single car ride that I've had with him, he falls asleep right away, I don't even know how. But the car ride up was pretty fun, a lot of laughing and just normal crazy teenage conversation with our boss driving and cracking up- that lady is actually insane in a mostly awesome way, I'll devote a whole post to her another time.
But we finally get there, as gorgeous as expected. There's a huge field surrounded by forest with the main lodge cabin, bathrooms and then four smaller cabins with bunk beds, rooming about 15 each; we only used 3, one boys (there are only five of them haha), one girls (with two mentors), and one for our boss and remaining mentors. We have lunch, the girls quickly starting a plan for later pranks on the guys, then set out on a hike that's about five or six miles to the beach and back (which we all woke up today extremely sore from), where we splash around then group up for a couple exhausting group games lead by a couple of the mentors that were pretty fucking awesome, honestly. One thing I love the most about this job is all the games that we play- with the kids we teach, with each other, with the other adults working in the campus; it's like elementary school all over but way more fun, since we appreciate it more. On the hike down to the beach, we were with our mentors and their two other mentees, while we were supposed to find a new adult to socialize with on the way back. I think we started out that way, but eventually split off with other interns. It was great having one of my first conversations with a sophomore guy on the other day (not the one I sat next to in the van, but his best work friend basically- they stick together as the only sophomore guys, especially since most of the other people on their day go to my school and are all cliquey) and we were getting along well- he's one of those quiet people who don't say much, but sit back and observe others unless he needs to speak up. Anyway we chatted for about ten minutes, until two of the guys on his day (the one from the van and a senior from my school) came up from behind and pulled him away, so I just merged with the five in front of us and had some interesting pop culture conversations for the miles uphill to camp- definite highlight, I love talking to these people so much.
When we get back, it's starting to get dark, so we play a game of sharks and minnows (yes, the one from 4th grade gym class), then there's an hour and a half of free time which I spend cooking, since I'm on kitchen duty. It's weird, but I actually really love working in the kitchen in these types of things- at an activism camp I was at this past summer we had a great KP (kitchen prep) crew that sung the whole time and was one of the best things of the week. But even when it's more mellow, like last night, there's just something about taking bland, boring, barely-edible material and turning it into delicious food (or to call that something simpler, cooking). It also helps that, being the only vegan in the family, I cook all of my own meals, and it's something that helps me feel more self-reliant and independent, or even powerful. I made my pasta and the group garlic bread, which received many compliments. That's a lie actually- i'm pretty sure I was way too conservative with the garlic butter, along with being too lazy to mince the garlic properly and having pretty big chunks as a result. The piece I had wasn't too great; but then again, mine was just garlic on top of bread, without butter like the others', so theirs' may have been good. But they're (mostly) too nice to ever tell me, so I guess we'll never know. Besides, it was my first time making it, so no shame no blame.
Meanwhile, during dinner, two girls- one of the senior team and another chica- snuck over to the boys cabin, stole their sleeping bags and hung them from the rafters in our cabin, while the rest of us kept them in the dining hall. It would have been hilarious, except they didn't ever see it- when half of the group slept early later, one of the mentors made them put the stuff back, which actually was very satisfying later. But I'll get to that, if I can finish this without falling asleep.
So after dinner cleanup was the most anticipated event of the trip: white elephant gift exchange, lead by my two best work friends- the three of us have been pretty much inseparable since summer training. But I was too lazy to sign up to lead an activity sooooohwell. The gifts ranged from incredible like a mug made out of chalkboard ceramics that you could draw on and chinese prayer flags (our program is about 60% chinese-american interns in case your cultural appropriation flags are going off, don't worry. I'm one of three white people in the eighteen of us), to creepy talking stuffed animals (seriously creepy, like nightmare material) and dog food (that was from the gas station). I supplied a tweety bird cookie jar that we've had for years, and ended up getting a "dinosaur tooth" that you had to dig out of "excrement". Or at least I'm hoping it's "excrement" with quotation marks, but i feel like it was pretty fair and on the level with what I provided. That ended at 9:30, with all of the girls except the dog food one, another sophomore from my school and one of my best friends going to bed. Us and all of the guys stayed awake for a couple hours longer- initially it was nice, with us all chatting together, but the group drifted into our tuesday/thursday groups with us hanging out with the same people as every other week in the year. The best moment of the night came when the guys minus pony boy and the male mentor all decided to go to their cabin to brush their teeth at 10:30 then come back to the lodge where we were hanging out, but they came sprinting back in a panic only two minutes later. Apparently, when they approached their cabin (in the pitch black night) and were about to enter, the door handle started turning, as though somebody on the inside was opening the door, but all of the boys were accounted for, and the rest of the camp was asleep besides us, so they screamed and ran like hell back to us. The male mentor finally calmed them down and reminded them that it was probably somebody confusing which cabin they were supposed to go in, and they all eventually headed out again to find the cabin empty but with their sleeping bags and gear moved around- we didn't tell them that the credit for that went to the girls until the next morning, so they were pretty freaked out and all slept together on the floor (gayyyy as the other lesbian intern -dog food girl- said. except one of them- seductive love song- is bi, which ruins the joke a bit). We never did find out who was in the cabin- I almost hope now that it wasn't any of us and was actually a murderer/lost random person/ghost, just cuz that makes the story almost spine chilling. We all went to sleep about half an hour after that, with no all-cabin girl talk to my slight dissappointment; i had drunk five cups of caffeinated tea that night and was therefore the only one not completely exhausted by the time we settled in. I payed for drinking all that tea a few hours later when I woke up with the urgent need to piss, and had to walk alone to the bathroom cabin at what I'm guessing was about 4 am. Interestingly it wasn't completely dark then, since I'd spent a few minutes staring up at our skylight adjusting to the dark, and there was a very bright moon- everything was an almost eerie gray, feeling like a dream that might not end.
We woke up refreshed but extremely sore at 7, and to avoid clean-up duty, I headed to the kitchen to help prepare breakfast, which was a fucking feast- pineapple and pancakes and homemade muffins and oatmeal and sausages (veggie ones for me). There was a riddle scavenger hunt afterwards which my team lost by about thirty seconds, but the prize was cookies so no great loss for me, plus the winners shared. Not much I feel like retelling happened this morning: we had an epic art-house-building contest which the mentors decided was a *tie* while our rainbow house was clearly the winner, we cleaned the place spotless for about an hour, and played mafia and a couple other tricky sorts of games- I won mafia actually, when there were three of us left we finally figured out the killer! Ironically, we'd killed the cops first. Of course , there are lots and lots of pictures- I'll post a few from facebook when the camera lovers put them up, they were pretty epic. We headed back to the city after lunch, slept in the car, then departed ways after.
Fucking seattle beat the niners, though.
I don't really know how to close this- writing out everything that happened makes it so much smaller than the experience really was. There's no way to transmit the hugs, the warmth of the inside jokes, the incredible amount of love we all had each other down into pixels on a screen- I think i mostly wrote this so that if I look back, I'll remember those specifics of the trip, and remember that no matter what, at that point in time, I was happy and loved. It's the most amazing thing, to have such a fantastic group of people that you can rely on that you know will be your friends for literally your whole life. Another thing I'm appreciating more and more is their whole-hearted acceptance of me- it's not like at school, where some of the girls are starting to act awkward and uncomfortable around me now that I'm more out- here they'll sit on my lap or pick me up without a second thought, which I can't express how meaningful it is (i'm practically sleep typing I dont give a single shit about grammar anymore). I just want to remember this weekend of joy and nature and love for when I feel alone, so that I know nothing's permanent. Since I am clearly at the point of night where I can only think in cliches, this is Goodnight- if anybody is somehow reading this, you are absolutely amazing and I have no idea how you aren't asleep with boredom. Sending out all this excess love to all the lonely queer girls, talk to ya later <3

Friday, January 17, 2014

This week feels like it has gone on forever- literally, it was only half way through tuesday that I realized it wasn't friday. But finally, it's over- I can't stress (ha) how stressful and upsetting it's been. And the thing is, the things that have happened aren't even that big or important. They're just lots of little things, all piling up until I'm completely overwhelmed by the dumbest shit imaginable- a grade from last semester I told my parents i'd change, people looking at me weird (especially in the locker room- hmm, I wonder why? Get over yourselves, self-obssessed straight girls -not nearly all of you, i know!-), fundraising for a service trip to Nicaragua this break, insane chem lab report to write that i haven't started. I guess it's because most of the time I just live in the moment and experience life as it happens without preparing much for the future. Maybe cuz that's what growing up is about: not being able to just float free through life, actually doing the soul-killing, mindless work that ends up being important somehow for some reason down the line. I'm just pretty behind everybody else, I think, like I always have been. So I think ima try and start fitting myself in the machine more so I don't end up just tossed aside, like a useless lug or something (that's a machine part, right? not too technically-inclined here haha), but staying absolutely me.
Okay I set the title already cuz I originally just planned on writing about what's coming up. So lets talk about this weekend!!
I'm a part of an awesome internship that I'll fully explain some other time (it has to do with environmental education in the bay area), but anyway we're having our midyear retreat this long weekend on saturday and sunday! We'll be staying overnight in cabins on some pretty nature beach campus, and just having a really goofy fun time. I love these people so much- this year would have been unbearable without them, we've just all grown so close over the thursday evenings and monthly saturdays we've spent together. So the midyear retreat will be the perfect time to let myself go, and know that I'm around people whose company i love, and who (most of the time) love me in return, which is pretty unusual and lovely. It'll just be awesome. Until I get back and have to write a lab report/spanish autobiography/ap world notes+essay outline/global technology model (i got anesthesia- like wtf!?), which might be a bit miserable. But otherwise, the next two days will be fucking fantastic.

a few of us thursday interns doing the high school musical jump in front of the sunset (after me and megan fell down a hill piggybacking and so we're scratched and crying- the two on the right)

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Hey, so if anybody ends up reading this, hi! Just a semi-lonely lesbian vegan thrift-shopping sophomore. But that sounds kinda pretentious, yknow, and its the little things that make us who we are- just putting the basics out ;) So this will be where I write about my daily thoughts, struggles, random shit or stories that i make up in my head and just wish actually happened in real life. Bear with me and my self-absorption- I'm starting this so I can have an outlet to actually talk about what's going on, since I'm starting to go a bit crazy being alone in my head. Let's be friends! See ya later, much love <3